Maternal Human Capital and Child Malnutrition

The overall objective of this study is to contribute to a better knowledge of the actors explaining acute malnutrition, with the aim of achieving the MDGs focused on the eradication of extreme poverty, particularly in households in the northern part of Cameroon. To achieve this objective, we used data from the MICS5 2014 survey in this work. On this basis, we conducted descriptive and explanatory analyses, following a multi-level approach. Overall, we retained eight (08) explanatory variables which are all significant at the multivariate descriptive level at a threshold of 1%, with the exception of the "reproductive capital" of mothers which is not significant at the threshold of 5%. The same is true at the multivariate explanatory level, where only "reproductive capital" remains insignificant. We have thus come to the conclusion that: the acute malnutrition that characterizes extreme poverty in the northern part of the country is not a problem of the "volume" of reproductive capital, but rather a problem of the "value" of the human capital that each individual receives since childhood.